'That's excellent,' said Prater. 'I was afraid we should have to send him to a home somewhere.'
'I suppose we can't keep him after all?' suggested Mrs Prater.
Trentham waited in suspense.
'No,' said Prater, decidedly. 'I think not.' So Captain Kettle went, and the House knew him no more, and the Tabby Terror was at an end.
12 — THE PRIZE POEM
Some quarter of a century before the period with which this story deals, a certain rich and misanthropic man was seized with a bright idea for perpetuating his memory after death, and at the same time harassing a certain section of mankind. So in his will he set aside a portion of his income to be spent on an annual prize for the best poem submitted by a member of the Sixth Form of St Austin's College, on a subject to be selected by the Headmaster. And, he added—one seems to hear him chuckling to himself—every member of the form must compete. Then he died. But the evil that men do lives after them, and each year saw a fresh band of unwilling bards goaded to despair by his bequest. True, there were always one or two who hailed this ready market for their sonnets and odes with joy. But the majority, being barely able to rhyme 'dove' with 'love', regarded the annual announcement of the subject chosen with feelings of the deepest disgust.
The chains were thrown off after a period of twenty-seven years in this fashion.
Reynolds of the Remove was indirectly the cause of the change. He was in the infirmary, convalescing after an attack of German measles, when he received a visit from Smith, an ornament of the Sixth.